Word: goodman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...scene was historical theater at its best, complete with tears, smiles and the unlikeliest of costars. There, standing in the White House Rose Garden and surrounded by beaming relatives, was Navy Lieut. Robert Goodman, dramatically home after a month in a Syrian jail. There was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Democratic presidential aspirant whose audacious diplomacy won Goodman his freedom. And there, in the middle, was Ronald Reagan, who a week earlier had declined to take Jackson's calls before the Baptist minister left for Damascus. But now the President graciously thanked the amateur envoy for his "personal mission...
...liberation of Goodman at least eased tensions between the two countries, whose worsening relations deteriorated sharply in December when Syrian anti-aircraft batteries fired on U.S. reconnaissance planes over eastern Lebanon. During a retaliatory strike the next day, two U.S. fighter-bombers were shot down and Goodman was captured. The new mood could be seen in small ways: Syrian television and newspapers carried the full text of Reagan's note to Assad, while the U.S. President expressed a willingness to meet with the Syrian leader. Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, is now expected...
...Goodman's release startled Washington, it did not surprise the supremely confident Jackson. Two weeks ago, .he learned through press reports that Rumsfeld had not even mentioned Goodman during talks in Damascus. Jackson blasted the Administration for not doing enough to free the airman, and within days the Syrians said he would be welcome in Damascus. He insisted he would not go if Reagan asked him not to, but four telephone calls to the President went unreturned...
Before talking with Assad, Jackson met with Syrian religious figures and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Though the Muslim and Christian leaders opposed Goodman's release, their American visitor made an impassioned plea for mercy. He then persuaded Mahmoud Labadi, a P.L.O. spokesman, to present Jackson's case for freeing Goodman to P.L.O. faction leaders in Damascus. It was they who subsequently urged the Syrians to give up the flyer...
...when the civil rights leader toured the Middle East. For a man who was hospitalized with a heart ailment just two months ago, Assad looked remarkably hale. He talked with the group for about an hour, then conferred with Jackson alone for 20 minutes. Jackson argued that keeping Goodman would not stop U.S. reconnaissance flights over eastern Lebanon. To concentrate on those missions, said Jackson, was to focus on the mailman instead of the post office. But if Assad released the flyer, Jackson maintained, he would fuel demands within the U.S. for a Marine pullout and achieve his larger goal...